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Genocide
Genociding something is the action of wiping out all members of a certain race by magical means. Do not confuse it with extinctionism, where you must kill all the creatures by yourself. Genocide can take place in the form of a scroll of genocide or you may get to genocide one monster when #sitting on a throne. Genocides gained from a throne are always safe, scrolls may not be if they are cursed or if you are confused. If you want to keep a genocideless conduct, you can always answer "none" when asked what to genocide. Specifying an invalid race five times in a row will also result in nothing being genocided and your conduct will be preserved. Genocide does not break the pacifist conduct. There is no penalty for genociding a species including pets or peaceful monsters, except the usual slight alignment hit for lawful non-demons or chaotic demons. Restrictions on genocide The following creatures cannot be genocided: *All A *All & *All ' *All E except stalkers (that is, elementals) *titans *salamanders *werecreatures *skeletons *ghosts and shades *All @, except nurses, doppelgangers, randomly generated elves, your own role, and the Yendorian Army *All unique monsters If you genocide your base race or role, you will die. Variants of your base race are safe to genocide; for example, as a gnome, you could genocide gnome lords or gnome kings, but choosing "gnome" to genocide is fatal. An amulet of life saving will not save you from death by genocide. This is usually only an issue with dwarves; see below. Reverse genocide Reading a cursed scroll of genocide will create 4-6 of the specified monster. This is what makes reading a non BUC-identified scroll of genocide dangerous. However, it can work to your advantage if the resulting monsters are useful and can be killed easily. Some useful monsters to reverse genocide are * , wraiths: to eat their corpses for a level gain. * , dragons: a dangerous way to make dragon scale mail. Be warned: reverse genociding dragons only produces at least one set of scales 86% of the time! (Assuming you cannot revive them with a Wand of undead turning) * , nurses: to nurse dance. * , tengu: to eat for a possibility of teleport control. * , kraken: easy experience as they are very slow out of water. Be aware that although they tend to run away, they still attack occasionally (but for obvious reasons cannot drown you out of water). * , mind flayers: to eat for intelligence gain; be sure to be standing on a burned Elbereth square. * , giants: to eat for strength gain. * , unicorns: to eat for poison resistance, to sacrifice if cross-aligned, and for unicorn horns, whether to use as-is or to polypile into other magical tools such as magic markers. * , gypsies (In SLASH'EM): can be used to get wishes. * , purple worms: combine with taming/ring of conflict and a wand of teleportation to easily clear out large open levels full of powerful monsters. If you are a Monk, you might want to reverse genocide gelatinous cubes if you are strong enough to defeat them, as eating them does not break the vegetarian conduct, and they convey a number of useful intrinsics. Beware though, that their corpses are acidic and will damage you unless you have acid resistance (such as from an alchemy smock). They can also clear a room of junk items pretty quickly. For monsters that you want to eat, especially those that provide a large amount of nutrition, it is valuable to have a tinning kit on hand when reverse genociding. You cannot reverse genocide a monster which cannot be genocided, or which has already been genocided. Reverse genociding does not break the genocideless conduct. Emergency genocide The scroll of genocide is a useful escape item, as it can instantly kill a monster which poses an immediate threat and cannot be dealt with in any other way. For example, a sea monster holding you, a single monster about to take your last hit point, or a nymph who is robbing you blind. Keep in mind however that some monsters cannot be genocided. Common genocides Some species are widely considered to be so nasty, or so annoying, that they merit genocide as soon as possible: * , liches * , mind flayers * , sea monsters * , rust monsters and disenchanters It is nearly always best to postpone genocide until you can bless your scroll, as the worst monsters don't appear until later, giving you plenty of time to build up a cache of holy water. Note that if you are a dwarf, genociding h will be instantly fatal! Thus, this is a good use for uncursed scrolls or genocides offered by a throne. Genocide by class (blessed scroll) Genocide one species (uncursed scroll or throne) No genocides It can be argued that many species are a source of useful items and properties, and hence genociding actually makes the game harder. Liches provide athames, mind flayer corpses can boost intelligence, sea monsters are trivial for a well equipped player to deal with, etc. It is also impossible to polymorph into a genocided creature, which may limit your options in certain situations (such as using the mind flayer's mind blast to alert monsters to your presence). This viewpoint usually advocates genociding only mimics, as this will increase the number of items present in shops, especially in Orcus Town. Another possible exception is sea monsters, which although trivial can be annoying or cause YASD by inattention. These are not randomly generated, so genociding them does not affect random generation. Since they typically live—and therefore die—in water, they are not normally a significant source of corpses or items (although electric eels are a potential source of shock resistance if you can recover the corpse). Electric and giant eels might make a good use of any single-species genocides that happen to be granted, saving mimics for a class genocide. Another problem with genociding is that it can increase the chances of getting more difficult, ungenocidable monsters. Thus it is generally a bad idea to genocide any more of the Nasties than is absolutely necessary. This is because ungenocidable nasties that can cast the summon nasties spell, like Archons, Titans and Ki-rins, are more likely to summon more of their own kind, leading to a self-perpetuating swarm of powerful creatures that can quickly fill up an entire level. This can be especially problematic in the Planes. Finally, some players abstain from genociding because they value a cursed genocide far more: in the mid-game, monster derivatives such as dragon scale mail, luck, experience level or attribute boost, unicorn horns, intrinsics, maximum hit point increase and the like provide greater in-game benefit, and in the late game they are powerful / skilled enough to handle genocide candidates anyway. A player who wishes to maintain genocideless conduct can answer "none" or "nothing" when prompted for which species to genocide. Wizard mode genocide Wizard mode offers an additional option for genocide: entering * for your genocide choice on a blessed scroll wipes out all enemies on the level, even those you can't see. This includes normally ungenocideable monsters, tame monsters, peaceful monsters, and everything else that isn't you. Category:Strategy Category:Actions